On 7/4/2013 9:13 AM, ChairMan wrote:
> IT'S A MAN THING
>
> About 2 weeks ago, I was looking around the Web for the
> BIGGEST sky
> rocket that I could get shipped to me via common freight
> carrier. I
> located a fireworks importer in Wisconsin who had this mondo
> sky
> rocket--biggest thing I had ever seen--called a SkyDragon.
> These things
> are 48 inches tall and are mounted on a 1/2-inch wooden
> dowel. Pure
> aerospace engineering.
>
> I plopped down a bunch of money and had him send me two
> cases of these
> things. They arrived at the freight dock a few days ago and
> I had to
> drive the van over to pick them up. Two boxes each 2 feet
> by 2 feet by 4
> feet in size containing 80 rockets each. The 'Class 4
> Explosives'
> sticker on the side of each box was a real bonus. I am
> gonna have to save
> them for the scrapbook.
>
> That night, me and the kiddos had a gen-u-ine rocket launch
> ceremony. I
> placed one of these beauties in a liter-size glass bottle
> and the bottle
> fell over. Hmmmm- this thing was waaay too big. I looked
> around the shop
> for a pipe to set it in, but realized that the only dirt I
> could drive the
> pipe into was in plain sight of my neighbor's house. I knew
> he was a cool
> guy, but I didn't want him to call the cops. You see-
> 'projectile-type'
> fireworks are totally illegal in this county. I was
> surprised that the
> Buncombe County Sheriff Department wasn't waiting for me at
> the loading
> dock when I picked these things up. Anyhow, I finally
> rigged a launch pad
> by prying up one of the driveway drain grates with a crowbar
> and sitting
> the stick into the deep pit. Looked sorta like an ICBM silo
> with its
> hardened lid slid aside.
>
> I asked which of my three kids wanted to light the fuse, but
> all took a
> few steps back and politely declined. Chickenshits. Kids
> just aren't
> made the same nowadays. They fulfill their danger quotient
> by shooting
> bad guys in video games. About as far from real danger as
> you can get, if
> you ask me.
>
> I told the little weenies to stand back as I bent to light
> the device
> with a Bic lighter.
>
> The lady at the fireworks importer promised me that these
> things would
> NOT make any noise. I told her that they HAD to be
> relatively quiet so I
> could shoot them off in my neighborhood without causing
> 'undue alarm'. She
> said I wouldn't have any problem. I emphasized the
> particular legal
> problems I would have if there were any type of loud report
> at apogee. I
> emphasized the fact that I lived right next to a National
> Park and that
> any type of firework that was discharged or assumed to be
> discharged on
> that property would get me sent before a FEDERAL judge right
> before I got
> sent to the COUNTY judge. She again assured me I would have
> no problem.
>
> That lying bitch.
>
> That rocket engine had a burn time about as long as any I
> had EVER seen,
> and the ascent echoed off the surrounding trees. Diamond
> shock pattern
> extended from the back end. It kept going and going and
> going. When it
> hit apogee at about 1000 feet, the rocket disintegrated
> into a huge
> shower of silent red sparks. Pretty cool, I
> thought......until the shower
> of sparks burned out and suddenly transformed into a cloud
> of extremely
> bright and loud explosions. The kids scrambled into the back
> door 'Three
> Stooges' style (ie: where all three try to get through the
> same closed
> door at once) and left me standing in the smoking haze
> waiting for the
> cops to arrive. The dogs that live along our street were all
> barking their
> heads off at the apparition they had just witnessed in the
> night sky
>
> That ended the fireworks test for the night.
>
> The next day, my oldest son Doug and I decided we were gonna
> 'neuter' one
> of the rockets so it wouldn't make any noise. I took him
> into the closet
> where I store the gardening tools and he saw these two huge
> cases of
> fireworks standing there. The kid went nuts. He wanted to
> open BOTH
> boxes so he could see what all 159 rockets looked like lined
> up next to
> each other. This kid has promise. I told him: "Since mom
> only thinks I
> have a few of these things lying around, maybe that wasn't
> such a good
> idea." He mulled that over for a few seconds, then gave me
> a real big
> smile in agreement.
>
> We pulled one of the rockets out of the box and re-locked
> the closet
> door.
>
> He and I both sat down on the driveway and proceeded to take
> it apart. It
> was a standard issue big-ass Chinese sky rocket. I bet they
> used these to
> kill people 500 years ago. As I sat there taking layer
> after layer of
> paper off, his brain was filling with the details of
> construction. Tissue,
> cardboard, plastic, fuses...etc. Realizing that he was
> mentally storing
> the design for some future project sorta made me shudder.
> All I was
> thinking was the fact that this thing was probably put
> together by a
> political prisoner in a hellhole somewhere who is probably
> gonna get
> 'executed' so they can sell his internal organs on the
> transplant market.
>
> Probably not too far from the facts, but I managed to do a
> bit of
> explaining to him from the standpoint of aerospace
> engineering regarding
> how the thing worked. Doug is probably the only 4th grader
> in the U.S.
> who can now describe the principle of thrust using a control
> volume model.
>
> The rocket was pretty simple. It had a very large booster
> engine topped
> with a warhead that contained the red sparkly things that
> exploded.
> Removing the warhead was as simple as giving a quick twist,
> and I assumed
> the neutered rocket would fly higher without the payload. I
> was correct.
> Doug and I did a daylight 'stealth' test and were able to
> add about 50% to
> the altitude attained the previous night. We decided to
> modify four more
> rockets and put them aside in the closet for easy access.
> When this was
> done, Doug had a jar full of stuff that came out of the
> warheads
> including: 12 fuses about 3-inches long each, some paper, 4
> plastic
> nosecones and a big handfull of these little black balls
> about the size of
> 12-gauge buckshot that turned out to be the 'red sparkly
> popper things'.
> It appeared that the outer layer was a simple gunpowder
> coating designed
> to quickly burn off as red shower of sparks. I surmised
> that the inner
> core had some kind of magnesium thermite that gave off an
> intense white
> light and a loud bang. Pretty cool if you ask me. Lots of
> energy packed
> into one teeny little ball.
>
> I didn't want to see the popper thingies go to waste, so I
> told Doug we
> were gonna put them in a hole in the ground and set them
> off. He gave me
> another big smile.
>
> It's amazing how kids think alike...even when separated by
> 30 years.
>
> As I was digging a shallow hole with my hand, Doug asked if
> it would be
> alright to put an army man next to these things so that
> "When they go off,
> it would look like he was getting shot with a maching gun".
> Dang....exactly what I was thinking. I agreed and he ran
> off to his room
> to dig something out of the mess. He returned in about 3
> seconds, out of
> breath and holding a cheap plastic imitation of Robert E.
> Lee on
> horseback and a Civil War cannon. I pointed out that they
> didn't have
> true machine guns in the Civil War, but we would overlook
> this for the
> purpose of the demonstration. He handed me the action
> figure and I placed
> it and the cannon next to a rather large pile of black beads
> from which a
> few of the fuses extended.
>
> I figured that three inches of fuse would take 2 seconds to
> burn, so I
> had at least that amount of time to stand up and take a few
> steps back. I
> neglected to recount the night before.....when the warhead
> ignited
> IMMEDIATELY upon reaching apogee. Tricky Chinese. They had
> installed
> extremely fast-burning fuse in these things and that fact
> totally escaped
> me.
>
> I squatted next to Robert Lee and gave a short eulogy. Doug
> laughed. I
> took the trusty Bic lighter and placed it next to the fuse.
> One flick got
> the lighter going and THIS IMAGE IS ONE I WILL REMEMBER FOR
> A LONG TIME.
> My hand holding a lighter next to a pile of explosives.
>
> There is usually a short but noticeable mental pause that
> occurs
> immediately before something bad or really stupid happens.
> It is where
> that little voice in your head says: "You dumbass."
>
> The fuse burn time was in the 1/1000ths of a second range.
> The pile of
> little popper thingy's immediately ignited into a
> tremendously brilliant
> ball of fire. All I could think was
> ..."...th....th.....thermite..."
> Unfortunately, when they are viewed at ground level, these
> little popper
> thingies become REALLY BIG POPPER THINGIES and have a
> tendency to jump up
> to 15-feet in every direction from their point of ignition.
> I
> instantaneously became engulfed in a ball of fire that
> sounded a lot like
> being in a half-done bag of Orville Reddenbacher's popcorn.
>
> It was all over about as fast as I could snap my fingers.
>
> After the smoke cleared, Doug started laughing his butt off.
> That meant
> I was still in one piece. Doug does not laugh at
> dismembered limbs. He
> said I jumped about 10-feet, an action that I do not
> remember. I checked
> my clothes for burn marks, and found none. He checked my
> back to make
> sure it was not on fire. No combustion there. The driveway
> was peppered
> with black holes where the concrete had been scarred from
> these things.
>
> A close one. Another REAL close one. My mind ran the tapes
> again to
> re-hash what it had seen. All I remembered was being inside
> something
> akin to a 30-foot diameter........flaming dandelion. Whew.
>
> We examined Ol' Robert E. at ground-zero.
>
> Instead of a machine-gun peppering, he got nuked. He and
> the horse he
> rode in on.......and his cannon too. One side was
> untouched, but the
> other side was arc-welded. Real warfare. Doug examined it
> real
> quiet-like and then started laughing again.
>
> I assume he will remember the finer points of the lesson as
> he grows
> older. When I now speak of 'almost being burned beyond
> recognition' he
> will have a slightly better understanding of what I mean. I
> hope that
> this vivid image tempers the knowledge he now has regarding
> rocket
> construction. O well. After all, if your dad isn't gonna
> teach you how to
> get your ass blown off, who will?
>
>
>
> Disclaimer:
> I did not write this, but it still makes me laugh every time
> I read it

Happy Independence day, it made me laugh as well :-)